The Vanishing Middle Class

As someone who worked full time through college and financed classes and books with the help of my wife and our credit cards, I can relate. Passages like this bring back memories:

Here, the world of possibility is shrinking, often dramatically. People are burdened with debt and anxious about their insecure jobs if they have a job at all. Many of them are getting sicker and dying younger than they used to. They get around by crumbling public transport and cars they have trouble paying for. Family life is uncertain here; people often don’t partner for the long-term even when they have children. If they go to college, they finance it by going heavily into debt. They are not thinking about the future; they are focused on surviving the present. The world in which they reside is very different from the one they were taught to believe in. While members of the first country act, these people are acted upon.

Thankfully, that was almost 14 years ago and my family has moved on. For others, the situation is only getting worse.

I believe there are those in the “first country” who are willing to help (I like to think I’m one of them), but the current political climate makes this almost impossible.